


Where the Light Still Burns

by firetoflame



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-06 23:44:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16842823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firetoflame/pseuds/firetoflame
Summary: The love story we all deserved in Ocean's 8 but didn't get.





	1. Chapter 1

It begins like all wonderful things do, without intention or even consideration of how it will work. The only thing Debbie Ocean knows is that they do work. This partnership . . . it’s a thing she can handle.

And Lou Miller, well, she’s another thing all together—a frequency that runs a little faster, a little wilder than everyone else. Debbie doesn’t know when exactly she starts to call them friends—somewhere between jobs and payouts. Or maybe it’s that sleepless night—the one with too much alcohol and just enough dancing on the fire escape. When the moon is high and they laugh into the darkness and the old woman in the unit below howls at them to shut up.

It starts there, she thinks.

And it’s good.

And she’s happy.

Life is better with Lou around. Everything is funnier. The days are longer in that way where you fall into bed wishing it could all last a little longer. And as the years pass this thing called friendship between them morphs into something that Debbie doesn’t quite have a name for. A sort of limbo.

Lou isn’t just her friend anymore. She’s her person.

It’s nothing more than that. Nothing more than believing that Lou might be the other half of her soul.

She’d never say it.

Never admit to it.

But there’s something there between them. It grows out of tiny things. Unnoticeable things. Except now Debbie is looking for them, so she notices. It’s the way Lou says her name, groggy and clipped with sleep as she stumbles around the kitchen looking for the good coffee. Debbie has to hide it because Lou would live off the stuff and she already doesn’t get enough sleep as it is.

It’s in the way they fall into bed together. Not with each other, just beside each other. The way she feels so much more at ease to know Lou breathes next to her. That if she were to reach across the divide between them, over the bundle of blankets that Lou kicks off in the middle of the night, that she’d find her hand, warm and open.

Yes, Lou is her person, and without her, Debbie would be lost. It’s as simple as that.

It changes again, this thing between them, morphing and shifting as they age. Debbie wants to say it gets better, like fine wine. But wine is supposed to taste richer and it’s not that the relationship isn’t richer for all the years spent together, it’s just that there’s this unspoken thing lingering in the way—stopping them from being the best they could be.

She knows what it is.

Fear.

They’re both afraid to lose everything they’ve built. That if it doesn’t quite click the way they both want it to, it will never be the same.

So the touches linger. Fingertips on skin. A knee. A shoulder. A more than friendly peck on the cheek. And the looks . . . well, they’re the hardest. She notices everything now. The curve of Lou’s hip as she leans against the counter in the morning, nursing yet another mug of coffee—black, always black.

Or the tangled fringe of blonde hair that hides those baby blues. A blue so electric it makes Debbie’s blood sing and her heart dance beneath her ribs.

Or the shape of Lou’s lips when she smiles. Debbie spends a lot of time looking at her lips. And she has no idea what to do with herself.

So they continue on as they always have, each one half of this unspoken thing, running jobs and making bank. And tiptoeing around the thing — the thing she’s named love.

And then she gets greedy, trying to stuff down the feelings and emotions that belong to the thing, diving head first into a job that finally catches up to her.

She gets caught up in the con, in Claude-fucking-Becker, because that’s how they do it. She throws herself into the deep end, submerged until she can’t tell the difference between Debbie and the pretty woman who hangs off his arm as they pick out marks at every gallery showing. She knows she’s in a little too deep, that she should pull back, back to Lou. But the con is long and the longer it goes the deeper she sinks, until she can’t quite untangle herself enough to recognize herself in the mirror. But she recognizes the taste of money and tells herself that the sex is just sex when you don’t mean it.

There’s no love between them—her and Claude-fucking-Becker. Just adrenaline and money and both of those things feel good, until they don’t. Until Debbie can taste the sour tang of metal on her tongue. The loud screech of guilt. And the lost silence of freedom.

Then it all comes rushing back in a hot wave and the only thing she wants to see when she surfaces is Lou. But Lou isn’t talking.

Won’t even see her.

And Debbie realizes just how much of a web she weaved. She’s a spider, stuck in her own trap. So she spends the next six-ish years getting out of it.

Jail is exactly what she expects it to be. Shit.

But she makes do with what she has. She always does.

Time is what she has mostly. Lou is there, stranded somewhere on the outskirts, betrayed more than anything, and yet still tied to Debbie because of that unspoken thing.

Debbie owes her a lot. An apology. A truth years in the making. And it’s going to cost her. Maybe every part of her, including her soul. She needs Lou back in a way she’s never needed anyone before.

So she plots long and hard. She has six-ish years to do it.

To run the mother of all cons—maybe the last con. To find a way to win Lou back.

To move past the point of partners-in-crime and maybe just be partners.

The details are a bit fuzzy still, but she knows she needs a diamond.

* * *

When she finally lays eyes on Lou for the first time in almost six years, Debbie is wearing the dress that she was arrested in.

Having said her goodbyes to Danny, she climbs into the truck that pulls up for her. As soon as she’s inside, Lou reaches over and squeezes her head, pressing a kiss to her hair and it’s almost like nothing has changed, expect it has, because Lou’s hovering on the outside. Not inside like she used to.

But Debbie’s going to change that. After she burns this fucking dress.

* * *

The loft is quaint. Big, but there’s a touch of Lou just about everywhere, making it homey, not to mention most of her own belongings. It reminds her of when they were young and starting out, living on top of each other in tiny New York apartments, Lou’s wild, eclectic style wrapping around her own reserved sense of self.

“There’s a room for you upstairs. Your stuff’s upstairs, too.”

Debbie studies the poker table that used to sit in her kitchen. They spent more time perfecting their card skills back in the day then they did actually eating.

“Yeah, I borrowed some shit,” Lou remarks. “Figured you weren’t using it.”

Debbie understands it for what it is. A peace offering that Lou’s shouldn’t even be making. Debbie’s the one that fucked up, not her. But it’s that unspoken thing again, tying them together just enough that Lou wants, no, has to make sure Debbie has a safe place to land.

“Where are you going?” Debbie wonders as Lou digs through her mail, picking up her keys again.

“Some’s gotta make sure the kids water down the vodka enough.” Lou shoots her a wink and leaves, not like she’s trying to run away from this, but also like she can’t escape fast enough. It’s like no time has passed at all, like they’re both just pretending Claude-fucking-Becker was a terrible dream. Though the look on Lou’s face when she turns to glance over her shoulder goes right through Debbie, sending her heart fluttering with wings that are still too shaky to use because the pretence is thin.

She wants to say everything now, to let it spill like blood across the floor, to close that divide between them and patch the holes she’s left in her absence. But she knows it’s not the right time. She knows Lou. Can read her like a book. And right now, Lou’s running. And she lets her.

“Of course you own a club,” she says with a smile.

Lou smirks. “One of us had to go legit.”

* * *

They laugh over her encounter with Claude and the shank.

Lou’s faking it mostly. It makes her uneasy. The whole thing. But Debbie’s never felt freer in the last six years, so she tucks the button away—the one she cut off his shirt and keeps it in her pocket. In a few weeks, she’s going to turn this button into millions of dollars worth of diamonds and right all the wrongs she made when she aligned herself with Claude-fucking-Becker.

Mostly, she’s going to get a smile out of Lou that isn’t partly forced.

* * *

The con is the first part of winning Lou back—that’s what Debbie figured out during all that time in solitary. It’s stability the only way she knows how. Maybe in another lifetime she’d be a nurse or an insurance consultant and Lou would be the grease monkey working on her car after she neglected to get the oil changed for months. And they’d meet and hit it off over drinks and fall into bed together and that would be the story.

But that’s not who they are. Crime is in their blood and if Debbie’s going to give this thing a go—if she’s going to convince Lou that they can make it, then she’s got to run this last con and then be done. They can’t keep tripping over themselves and the law. She can’t risk losing Lou again.

So it’s one and done.

“Oh, honey, is this a proposal?” Lou jokes and Debbie can tell she’s not sold. Not quite yet. But she’s entertaining the idea, if only for old times sake.

“Baby, I don’t even have a diamond yet.” She lets her smile curl just enough that Lou can’t look away. Yes, she knows she’s playing her right now. Lou knows that she’s being played. That Debbie’s batting her brown eyes and holding the fork out as an offer she just can’t refuse.

Lou studies her with an intensity that sends her insides spinning, watching those blue eyes shift over her, like she’s looking for a place to land herself.

Here, Debbie wants to shout. Right here.

But she keeps her cool. “C’mon,” she says. “Take a bite.”

And it’s not about the food at all, even though it’s fucking delicious and beats prison slop any day. It’s all a big fucking metaphor. And when Lou takes out her gum, Debbie celebrates the victory and they share a plate the way they used to when the jobs were scare and money was tight and they only had enough food to fill one plate anyway.

* * *

Now that Lou’s on board, assembling the team comes next and they start with Rose.

Rose is easy. She’s just past desperate enough for it not to sound crazy. And maybe, Debbie thinks, the woman is just a little crazy herself. Also, owing the IRS is an incentive in itself.

Amita is a fast sell. She’s itching for freedom, a freedom that Debbie now understands more than ever. So she offers it up. She offers up the wings to let Amita fly and the girl jumps.

When she gets back to the loft, Lou is hanging over the shoulder of some girl with dreadlocks and an army green jacket. She looks like the kind of person they’re trying hard not to look like. Part of why this works—why they work—is because they don’t look like they’re running a con. This girl though—what is Lou thinking?

“She’s in the Met?” Debbie asks, more than a little surprised because really? This girl?

Lou looks up at her, a flash of that old spark as she says, “Security cameras.”

Debbie isn’t sold. This is a bump that she hasn’t smoothed yet. But damn if she doesn’t want Lou to look at her like that again. So she puts her hand out. “My name’s Debbie.”

“Nine-ball,” the girls says.

Of-fucking-course it is.

“What’s your real name?”

“Eight-ball.”

They end up in the hall—her and Lou—whispering about names and professionalism and this can’t really be the best hacker Lou could dig up? But there’s fire in Lou’s eyes and Debbie lets her have it. She’s not sure about this. But she’s sure about Lou.

When Nine-ball hacks the loft and cuts the power, Debbie’s a little more sold.

They head to Chinatown next and Lou’s wearing a leopard print jacket that feels like silk between Debbie’s fingers. She plays with the hem where it folds against her pants as they lean against each other on the subway train.

It’s packed, but she’s never had a problem being this close to Lou. In fact, it’s all she wants right now. So she lets her think it’s because of the train, or maybe Lou doesn’t think that at all, because she crosses her legs and lets her foot dangle close enough to brush Debbie’s calf whenever the train jostles.

Debbie doesn’t know what it means. She knows what she hopes it means. But that’ll have to wait, because there’s another one of these kids that Lou’s dug up from who knows where with sticky fingers and a point to prove.

Constance is beyond eager. She’s trying to hide it, but Debbie remembers that spark of adrenaline and challenge—the same she felt when Danny pulled her into a job for the fun of it, just to see if she could handle it. So she lets the girl take her watch. Lou is too busy glancing at her when she doesn’t think she’s looking to notice Constance slide her own watch right off her wrist.

But the girl’s good. Debbie will give her that. Lou’s right about this one. So they buy her lunch and give her the address to the loft and watch her skate away.

“I like her,” Lou says.

Debbie nods. “Me too.”

The last person is Tammy. Debbie makes a house call because Tammy’s an old friend. Almost as old as Lou and Debbie knows what makes her tick. Also, Tammy already said no when she asked her on the phone, so what else was there to do but show up in her garage?

Lou thinks she’s wasting her time, but Debbie knows better, knows just how to suck Tammy in and as she approaches, predator stalking her prey, she watches Tammy wring her hands together.

“You’re not bored out here, Tam-Tam?”

Tammy stumbles into the side of a box. Effectively cornered. And Debbie smirks because Tammy’s never been good at saying no, even when she knows she should. It’s in her blood, just like the rest of them, so even though she’s trying to play suburban housewife, there’s a need she has to fill.

She’s an addict and Debbie’s dangling the heroin.

“It’s a big job,” Debbie says.

“I don’t care.”

Oh, but she does, Debbie thinks, reeling her in a little more. All it takes is a whisper. A number. And she’s got her. Tammy is hooked and not even the call of her daughter, shouting for dinner is enough to sway her.

* * *

The plan starts with a number. Sixteen point five million to be exact. Each. Five weeks from now.

They’ve gathered the team to tell them they’re about to rob the Met. To outline their roles.

Lou hangs back, letting Debbie run most of the show and although she’s all in—Debbie knows this—there’s still some hesitation there. Not about the con or the plan. But about Debbie herself. Lou’s trying to keep her distance because they’ve fallen back to each other so easily, without fixing the holes, and Debbie knows that Lou doesn’t think she could survive another.

So she’s bracing for impact.

* * *

Debbie knows she’s right when Lou confronts her about Claude-fucking-Becker.

“Don’t con me,” Lou says. “You don’t run a job in a job!”

“Lou,” Debbie says, but she’s not hearing it. The eruption is there, just on the surface, all the unsaid things. But it’s not the time. They need to focus. “Lou,” she tries again. “He sent me to jail. You have no idea what that’s like.”

Even as Debbie says it, she knows it’s a lie, because Lou was in her own sort of prison. That one that exists when you can’t let go.

Lou’s hands curl, nails biting into skin. There’s fire in her eyes, blown so wide Debbie could probably see herself in their blue depths.

For the first time since coming back, Debbie sees the fear. She hears the hurt that Lou keeps hidden so well. “Yeah, well, he’s going to do it again.”

“No. He’s not,” she says. “He’s not.” It’s a promise. The only one she can give, because she’s certain this time. She’s older and smarter and she’s run this job every which way.

Lou just looks at her and Debbie can see a little more of the heartbreak that she pushes down. She wants to reach out, wants to pull her into a hug, but they’re just starting to close that gap between them and Debbie doesn’t want to spook her. So they just stand there, in the dwindling twilight, staring at each other and figuring out how to move past that unspoken thing.

Almost, Debbie thinks. Just a few more weeks.

* * *

A few more weeks come and go. The heist happens. There are a few hiccups, but no hitches.

And no one goes to jail. The only thing that really gets her heart pumping during the entire thing is seeing Lou walk around the street corner in that glittery green jumpsuit, a string of diamonds dangling down her neck.

If there was anything that would have stopped Debbie in her tracks, that would be it. And it was.

Now they just have a bunch of jewels in their fridge and a living room full of partners to pay off—including Daphne Kluger herself—and then they’re home free.

* * *

When it’s all said and done, Lou gets her bike ready to go and packs a bag as she prepares to head down the coast. “What are you going to do?” she asks Debbie.

“Wait,” she answers easily. She doesn’t tell her what for. That part’s obvious, even though Lou still looks a little taken aback. “I’ll keep an eye on the club while you’re gone,” she adds. She wants Lou to know that she isn’t going anywhere. Not this time.

Lou doesn’t say anything, just nods slowly, but before she can back away, Debbie grabs her, hand wrapped around one of those beady chains that she always has looped around her neck and pulls her into a hug.

She knows Lou has to run. She has to run in order to find her way back.

“Have fun,” she whispers.

The corners of Lou’s mouth tip up. It isn’t a full smile. But it’s real. And it’s enough for Debbie. Enough for now.

Because she has that diamond. So when Lou gets back, she’s going to make a play at this unspoken thing between them. She’s going to make it real. And maybe, between the two of them, they’ll be able to figure out this little thing called love.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s been three days and all Lou can think about is Debbie.

She’d hopped on her bike and blown away from the loft as fast as she could, tires screeching and music blaring, hopping to leave those exact thoughts behind.

But the biggest con of her life has been pretending that Debbie was just a friend. That the stirrings she feels whenever the woman moves or breathes or looks at her for too long mean nothing.

And this little road trip feels somewhat apropos because in her haste to run away from all things Debbie, Lou has nothing but time to dwell on just that.

So it only lasts three days before she jumps on her phone and texts her. It’s nothing serious. Just a goofy picture of her in front of some breathtaking landscape. As nice as it is, Lou can’t help but feel that it would be so much better with Debbie here. She almost tells her that.

Almost slips. Then she remembers why she ran. The hole she’s trying to climb out of, or at least, trying not to drown in. And she lets the words fall away, leaving those thoughts to remain just that. Thoughts. Because there are a lot of other thoughts she hasn’t quite sorted yet and those are the priority right now.

If she’s ever going to manage to figure out how to exist in a world where Debbie Ocean is a free woman—living in her loft, sharing the same scented bar of peach soap in the shower, drinking the same coffee, and depositing small chunks of the millions of dollars they have stashed away—she needs to sort herself out.

That’s what this is.

Not a trip to run away from Debbie.

But to embrace all things Debbie.

Lou’s done a fine job of ignoring the feelings up until now. With the con it was easy. There was always something better to be doing—tracking Claude’s movements, reassuring Rose, babysitting Constance.

But now, in those quiet moments that come after, the moments where they just sit and wait as the money trickles in . . . well, these ones are harder to deal with. There’s a pull there, in those quiet moments, one that draws her and Debbie together. It’s like the universe or fate itself is scribbling them a map, telling them both to get a clue.

If they survived cons and jail and even Claude-fucking-Becker, still finding their way back to each other in the end, didn’t that mean something?

That’s the part she’s unsure of. What Debbie wants. For a while Lou thought it was Claude Becker. Debbie had pulled away, into a fantasy that left them moving on different frequencies for the first time since they met and Lou had taken it as a sign. She tugged on her heart strings and tied them back around her ribs. Every day, she unravelled herself from Debbie a little more. Even when it all went to shit and she watched her best friend be carted off to prison, Lou had held strong, because she couldn’t hurt if there was nothing there to pierce her heart with.

If all her strings had been severed, how could she possibly miss Debbie Ocean.

Lou stops at a series of rundown, roach motels over the next few weeks. She strips the bed of the comforter and flops down in the middle and wonders when she started calling Debbie Ocean her best friend. It was early on at some club. They were working a mark and he got a little too handsy with her. Lou could take care care of herself, naturally, but when that tangle of brown hair came swinging, both fists in the air, Lou knew it was right.

After that, things just seemed to click. Debbie filled the parts of her that had always been a little lost. Parts of her that she didn’t realize she was still waiting around for someone to hold together.

Maybe that was it. Debbie Ocean had been the glue that put Lou together. And when she left, it was all Lou could do not to shatter. Not to lose the pieces of herself that already belonged to Debbie.

That’s when she knew it wasn’t just friendship, but more. When the ache travelled too deep for her to patch, when it hurt despite all the strings she’d cut, Lou knew.

She was in love with Debbie-fucking-Ocean.

“Goddammit,” she mutters to herself, running a hand through the unkempt pile of blonde hair on the top of her head.

She sits up and thumps her fists on her knees, trying to bump the thoughts into place.

Then she stands and grabs her phone from the dresser. It’s late. Almost tomorrow. But she calls anyway.

Debbie answers, surprised, her voice thick with sleep.

For a while all Lou can do is breathe. Breathe and try to remember how to speak. There’s a lead weight in her stomach. It feels like it might crush her from the inside out.

“Lou?” Debbie says, a little more alert now. A little worried. “Are you okay?”

Lou just breathes.

Just breathes.

Finding the words.

“I’m coming home,” she says finally, lost with what else to say.

She can hear the smile in Debbie’s voice. “I’ll be here,” she promises.

Lou hangs up and grabs her helmet. The weight isn’t gone, not at all, but she thinks that maybe it’s a little lighter.

Maybe, at the end of all this, she’ll stop sinking.

Maybe she’ll finally float.

* * *

Debbie greets her at the door.

The rumble of the bike is hard to ignore, so it’s not exactly like she can sneak in quietly and gather the thoughts that have been trailing her back down the coast like a pack of barking dogs. The thoughts are shouting now, telling her to fuck rhyme or reason and just kiss the woman who leans casually against the counter of the kitchen wrapped in a navy silk robe. The whole thing just makes Lou’s fingers itch to touch her.

But she doesn’t.

She just sits at the counter, on one of those spongy topped bar stools and nurses her coffee. Debbie’s made it black—hot and strong. And since when has Debbie-fucking-Ocean making her coffee felt so domestic?

“I’m glad you’re back,” she says. “It was too quiet around here.”

Tell me about it, Lou wants to say. It’s been too quiet these last six years.

But she doesn’t say that because she’s tired of punishing herself, of pushing herself away from the things she wants because she doesn’t think she deserves them. In what world would Debbie Ocean possibly want to belong to her? She doesn’t know, but she kind of thinks it might be this one.

After everything that happened, Debbie could have gone anywhere, could have done anything. Disappeared. Started fresh on some island in the south. Bought a flat in Europe. And yet, here she is, standing barefoot in Lou’s kitchen, hair tangled down her back, lips puckered in that way she does when she’s thinking incredibly hard about something.

Lou wonders if they’re thinking the same somethings. “It was a good trip,” she says.

“A lot of sightseeing?”

She nods. “And thinking.”

“Oh?” Debbie says, leaving it wide open for her.

The expanse is terrifying. These are the things Lou usually shies away from. In fact, she’s one step from bolting in the other direction. The closest she got to telling Debbie how much she cares about her was yelling at her before the Met and telling her that she was going to get herself tossed back in jail for bringing Claude Becker into the picture.

That was the closest thing to I love you and I can’t spend another six years without you.

But it wasn’t quite right. Wasn’t enough. So she hugs the mug tighter, leeching strength from the warmth of the coffee.

“What’d you think about, Lou?” Debbie comes to lean against the island, so they’re face to face. She looks sad in a way. Vulnerable. And Lou knows if they’re ever going to have this talk and stop tripping over each other, it has to be now.

“I thought about a lot of things. My life mostly and the people in it. About what I wanted it to look like now that we’re millionaires.” She quirks the edge of her smile and Debbie chuckles. It’s soft and breathy and Lou just wants to dive into that sound forever. “And . . .” she fingers the rim of the mug, brushing stray beads of coffee away, “I thought about you.”

“Hmm,” Debbie says, folding her hands under her chin, brown eyes wide and patient.

Lou’s never been good at this. Asking for what she wants—no, needs. She swallows hard, throat dry and tight suddenly, wondering how that happens. “Deb, I—”

She hesitates until it feels wrong and then just lets it die.

“Goddamn, Lou, just say it!” Those brown eyes turn to fire. “Why did you come back? You hopped on that bike and took off. You could have gone anywhere. Done anything. So why did you come back?”

Lou’s jaw trembles and she wonders when she suddenly lost control of her emotions. She brings the back of her hand up to her lips, trying desperately to hold it all inside.

Debbie walks around the island and pulls Lou into a hug that crushes the rest of the air from her lungs. This isn’t her, this weepy, unstable woman. Lou Miller does not break down like this. Not for anyone.

Except maybe Debbie Ocean.

They stay like that for a while, until Lou realizes Debbie’s swaying, rocking from side to side, the motion calming, her fingers threading through Lou’s hair. There’s apologies in the silence. They’ve always been better at communicating like this. A touch. A look. It always seems to mean more than words. Sorry can be thrown out there on the wind. But the way Debbie touches her . . .

She pulls away suddenly, guard shooting back up, but Debbie doesn’t let her get far, doesn’t let her look away. They stare at each other, lost in each other. Debbie squeezes her arms gently.

“Lou,” she says. And that’s all she says. There are tears in her eyes.

Lou lets her eyes close and laughs a little. Laughs at the absurdity of it and at the feelings of hope that swell inside her. At the threads that weave over those hollow places in her chest, closing the holes that formed in Debbie’s absence. It’s ridiculous how quickly she lets herself fall back to Debbie. How easily she lets herself trust her.

How much she wants Debbie to want her.

It’s all so damn ridiculous.

But isn’t love something utterly ridiculous?

Isn’t giving someone the ability to destroy you the most foolish thing anyone could ever do?

“Lou,” Debbie says again and it’s a plea and a bargain and a promise.

“How long will you stay?” Lou asks her, but Debbie bites her lip and shakes her head. It’s not the question Lou wants to ask and they both know it. So she tries again. “Why did you leave?”

Why did you join up with Claude-fucking-Becker? Why was it his bed you were in when they both know it’s not where she wanted to be? And why didn’t you come back when you felt yourself slipping?

“Because I was afraid,” Debbie says simply. “I was afraid that if I loved you, I’d lose you.” Her breath is warm on Lou’s face. “I haven’t lost you yet, have I?”

Lou’s answering smile stretches as Debbie’s fingers trace the line of her jaw. Lou wants to unravel in her arms. Tell her no, that she’ll never lose her, no matter how many times she hurts her. Because Lou cannot really take back the part of her that has belonged to Debbie Ocean since the moment they met.

As much as Debbie might be her undoing, she’s also her salvation. The sun that forever draws her in.

Debbie’s thumb traces a path just below her lip and Lou knows she’s forgotten how to breathe. “Stop teasing me,” she whispers.

“Then say it,” Debbie says. “Tell me I haven’t lost you.”

Lou pulls Debbie closer by the loops of her robe, fingers curled on her hips. Debbie stands between her thighs. She can feel the silk slip across the fabric of her pants. Taste the sweetness of vanilla on Debbie’s breath. They’re much too close. Much too tangled. More so then they’ve ever been before. And yet it’s exactly what both of them want.

Lou lets her eyes close. Can feel the warmth of Debbie’s face inching closer to her own, until they’re a breath away from oblivion. “Oh, God, I missed you.”

“Stop missing me,” Debbie says and Lou could swallow her words. “I’m right here.”

Suddenly the front door opens again and Lou pulls back—away from Debbie, away from the almost-kiss, and the path towards oblivion—and in spills half the team, Constance at the helm, skating across the floor. “So, is this a good time,” she asks before launching herself over the arm of the nearest couch, “or like—no?”


	3. Chapter 3

“What did I tell you about riding that thing in here?” Debbie says without missing a beat. She pulls away from Lou, but not before letting her fingers run over her knee. One last fleeting touch that says there’s more to come because they are far from finished. That’s the beauty of this thing now—it will never be finished, not if she has anything to say about it.

And if Debbie is good at anything, it’s making sure she has a say.

“Not on the hardwood. Got it,” Constance replies, snatching a pillow and stuffing it under her head. “What’ve you got to eat? I’m starving.”

Nine Ball makes a grunt of approval as she plops down in an overstuffed beanbag chair which Debbie knows did not exist pre-heist. It’s well worn, with scratched elbow patches and bits of stuffing coming out the seams. But it’s a must-have for the hacker who is still making sure their millions of dollars worth of internet footprint stays covered up.

“There’s leftover Chinese in the fridge,” Debbie says and in a single elegant roll, Constance is off the couch and across the room, head bobbing in the refrigerator.

“Since when do you eat Chinese?” Lou asks, arms tucked across her chest. It looks casual, but Debbie recognizes the defence mechanism. This morning caught her off guard, more than she’s willing to admit right now, so she’s putting some distance between them. Between herself and everyone.

Debbie shrugs, glancing back at her. “I don’t normally.”

Lou gives her one of those looks. The kind that digs around inside her, silently unearthing answers. She doesn’t have to look very hard for this one though. Chinese isn’t something Debbie usually eats, but it’s Lou’s favourite. And she was missing her, so logic only dictates—

Lou seems to get it. Seems to read it exactly the way Debbie has thought it because the next thing she knows, Lou’s cheeks have flushed a pretty shade of pale pink.

Debbie smirks because it isn’t often that she can unnerve Lou in front of a crowd. If there is anything that woman is, it’s calm and cool under pressure—or in this case a bunch of insanely rich women eager for a good piece of gossip.

Lou stands, dusting invisible dust from her pants and busies herself in the kitchen by making more coffee and wiping up the trail of Peking pork and soy sauce Constance has managed to trail from one end of the counter to the other.

At that, Debbie leaves the room to get dressed. The silk robe was mainly for Lou’s benefit; it isn’t as practical when she’s tripping over Constance and the others.

Upstairs she slips into a pair of fitted jeans and a black turtleneck, runs a brush through her hair, and wipes some mascara over her eyelashes. It’s a little more effort than usual for a day when she plans not to see the world beyond the loft, but she feels like the stakes inside the loft are pretty high right now. Which deserves more than just bed-head Debbie.

“Did you just get back?” she hears Tammy ask as she comes back down the stairs.

“Yes,” Lou says and Debbie’s almost sad to see that Lou’s composed herself again. Pulled that carefully crafted wall into place. Oozing that easy confidence that Debbie finds so attractive. “Did you bring the kids this time?”

“No. I’m on an . . . adult trip.”

Lou smirks, leaning on her elbows on the counter, chin pressed upon her locked hands. The chains at her neck pool against the glossy marble surface and Debbie has to pull her eyes up from the dip created by Lou’s shirt. “What are you buying up this time?”

“I’ll let you know when I find out. Why? Are you looking for something?” Tammy glances around the loft. “Looking to redecorate now that you can afford to?”

“Hey!” Lou defends. “I live this way because I like it.”

“Is that why you stole all of Debbie’s things? Because you liked them and not because you were outfitting your place on the cheap?”

Lou rolls her eyes. “I’m taking back my coffee,” she says, making a grab for the mug that Tammy pulls closer to her chest.

The two of them grin at each other.

“But seriously,” Tammy says. “You can afford it now. Maybe it’s time to upgrade the poker table to an actual kitchen table.”

“I like the poker table,” Lou says.

Tammy taps the kitchen counter with a long, acrylic nail. “Seriously, Miller. Come on. I can literally get you anything you want. Just name it and they’ll be knocking on your door tomorrow.”

“Your thieves knock, do they?”

“They’re not all thieves.”

Lou sighs. “The poker table is Debbie’s. If she wants to get rid of it she can.”

Tammy turns on the bar stool enough to see Debbie as she approaches. “So apparently you have the veto power. Can I get some actual furniture for this place now or what?”

Debbie shrugs, looking from Tammy to Lou; her eyes linger long enough to see Lou look away. She bites back the chuckle on the edge of her tongue. “I like the poker table too.”

This time when Lou catches her eye, there’s warmth there. Yes, most of their furniture is old and eclectic and outdated, but it has history. Years of late nights and tipsy talks and in the case of the poker table, a few handsy games of strip poker that left them both giggling and sitting in their underwear.

That was years ago now, a memory that still brings a smile to her face. It was all so innocent back then, Debbie almost rolls her eyes at the thought. The way she feels about Lou now, well, she wouldn’t mind getting Lou tipsy and in her underwear again.

“I can’t with you two,” Tammy mutters, taking a long sip of coffee. It’s almost white with the amount of creamer she’s added. “I think my son has more taste than both of you combined. And he still eats sand at the playground.”

Debbie snorts and takes a piece of buttered toast from the plate on the counter. Whatever remained of Constance’s weekly binge through the fridge. “You should probably have him checked for worms.”

Tammy waves her off and leaves to sit on the couch. With a stern look, she makes Constance ball up to one side of the oversized piece of furniture instead of letting her hog the entire thing like she usually does.

Debbie watches Lou take in the scene and there’s warmth there. Genuine and real joy. The funny thing about the con wasn’t that no one had gone to jail, but that they had found an unusual friendship with each other—one that extended beyond the job. She supposes that there’s a shared understanding now. An understanding of how lonely a criminal can be.

So no amount of money was enough to send them scattering. Oddly, they’d all settled relatively close. Even Amita only ended up a couple blocks from her mother in the end.

Money’s nice. But it didn’t buy love.

Debbie finishes her toast and watches Lou round the counter to look over Constance’s shoulder at something on her phone. The girl had become a sort of media influencer since the heist and though she probably wouldn’t understand most of it, there’s a sense of pride that lingers in Debbie’s chest for the young girl. To take herself from the streets to the penthouse of some overpriced apartment in New York is a big jump for anyone and Constance is handling it all with an unexpected maturity, though not without her usual flare.

Only Constance would continue to skateboard on flooring that cost more than the average person made in a year.

Debbie shakes her head at the thought and moves to join them. It’s only the five of them today.

Rose is away in Europe, taking in inspiration for the new Spring line she wants to put out next year. Her and Amita had met up in Paris for a while. And Daphne was in L.A. finishing up some promotional thing she’d been asked to do after the gala. 

Debbie expects them all back sooner or later though. Most likely sooner.

But even with just the five of them, it’s almost eight before the last of them vanish for the night, effectively leaving Debbie alone with Lou for the first time since this morning.

And if all the air in the room doesn’t just disappear with Constance as she skates out the door, then she’s lightheaded for a completely different reason.

Sensing the dramatic shift in mood, Lou stills on the other side of the room where she’s been picking up empty soda cans and paper plates seeing as pizza is a must when Constance and Nine Ball are here for any length of time.

With nothing else to do but confront the space and mood head on, Debbie crosses the room straight to Lou, takes the garbage from her hands and drops in down on the coffee table. Lou’s as stiff as a corpse which is so completely unlike her and Debbie knows she should move all of this so much slower, but there’s a need inside her that’s begging and begging and begging.

She’s done denying it.

When she finds Lou’s eyes, really finds them, Debbie runs her hand along her hip, drawing tiny circles into Lou’s skin, waiting for the ice that’s stiffened her from the inside out to shatter. It takes only a few seconds and then Lou is caving into the touch with shuddering breaths as Debbie draws them together, wasting no time with lingering looks.

“I don’t think we quite finished earlier,” Debbie says, fingers playing with the chains around Lou’s neck. They’re long. Hang right to her navel. And Debbie can feel the flutter of soft skin as Lou sucks in a breath.

She doesn’t wait this time.

She kisses Lou.

Kisses her the way she’s been dying to.

She’s known Lou for years now and if she’s learned anything, it’s that Lou has a tendency to overthink things. That happens when you grow up alone. When you don’t have people to call your own. When you have to spend every shred of your existence proving your worth to people who just turn around and throw you out. Every group home. Every foster family. Every employer or social worker or guidance counsellor who told her she wasn’t good enough to be wanted.

Lou thinks about those things even now, as the intelligent and creative and beautiful woman she’s become, because, at the end of the day, Lou’s still that hurt little girl. Debbie understands who Lou is, and that’s why she knows she can’t give her the time to rethink this. To wonder.

She just has to show her exactly how much she’s wanted.

So she tightens her grip on those chains and gives a little yank, pulling Lou closer and kisses her again.

It isn’t the shattering, bruising kiss she’s been imagining—not at first. They need to build this thing between them, to give it a solid foundation. So she starts slow, lips like a flutter of wings against Lou’s, barely brushing their skin together.

She touches Lou’s cheek, lets her fingers skim the fine line of her jaw, her thumb brushing over cheekbones and beneath fluttering eyelids.

When she’s certain Lou isn’t going to pull away, she lets go of her chains and grabs her by the hip instead, drawing them even closer. Hip to hip.

The kisses continue, these slow, hesitant things, even though there is nothing hesitant about it. They’re both just trying to memorize the first time this happens, the nerves, the intensity, the sheer relief. The heat. Debbie wants to remember it all. So she keeps her eyes closed and draws a picture in her mind, caressing Lou’s face with her hand and tracing the shape of her lips with her own.

When she feels Lou’s tongue tangle with hers, the kisses leave slow and gentle far behind, becoming messy and needy and full of sounds that might come from her. But they might not. By the time Debbie’s brain catches up, her hand is in Lou’s hair, her other up the back of her shirt, pressing frantically against flushed skin.

Lou’s hand cradles her face, making delicate strokes from cheek to jaw.

It’s almost too much for Debbie. Too much to continue standing upright in the middle of the living room.

But she does, because anything else, anything resembling horizontal, is definitely much too fast.

She wants Lou in all the ways, of course. The warm smiles. The late dinners. Early morning conversations. In all the nice and comfortable ways people in love have each other. But she also just wants her in bed. She wants to feel the press of Lou’s ribs as she gasps for air. She wants to feel the smooth dip of her hip bones traced beneath her thumbs. She wants to feel the moan vibrate up her throat as she teases her.

She wants Lou in all the dark, secret, hidden ways.

She doesn’t think she’s ever wanted anything the way she wants Lou; her skin yearns for it, burning like a hunger that would eat its own flesh unless satiated by another.

And for that reason, she has to pull back, because there’s hardly a point to stop what they’ve started, and hell if she’s going to let them fizzle out like that. She’s in this for the long haul, so she’s going to do this right. They’re going to talk about them. About the future. And when she’s certain that there isn’t one ounce of hesitation or fear left in Lou, then she’s going to let them drown in the passion she can feel bubbling up between them.

For now, she’ll just keep treading water.

The diamond she kept is weighing her down, but she can hold out long enough for Lou to catch up.

For Lou to stop thinking about Claude Becker and if he’s the one that would be standing here if things had worked out differently, because in every universe it’s always been Lou. Debbie just has to make sure she knows that.

“I love you, Louise Miller,” she whispers against her lips, close enough for Lou to swallow the words. To keep them safe, tucked away inside her until they make sense.

Lou laughs a little, almost to herself, shaking that halo of blonde hair. “I thought so.”

Debbie isn’t sure she completely believes that Lou believes what she says, but it’s a start at something real, something more, and she’ll take it.


	4. Chapter 4

If she looked back on her life thirty years from now, Lou would confidently be able to say that the only thing she was ever certain of was Debbie Ocean. That woman, in all her glory, had been the one constant.

Even with Claude-fucking-Becker and jail, they’d been pulled back together, like two ends of the same rope. No matter how much they frayed at the edges, they always met in the middle. So she isn’t surprised at how easily they fit together, not just as friends and partners, but in the other ways. In the ways that are secret and shared. In the brush of a hand against a thigh. Or in the stroke of a thumb over cheekbone.

Lou thought the novelty might wear off. That she might grow tired of the touches and glances and stolen moments between visits from the girls, where she and Debbie were entirely consumed with themselves. When a morning could stretch into evening, both of them still clad in their pajamas from the day before, unsure of whether they’d just eaten breakfast or dinner.

It’s happened slowly. Over a series of months. Much slower than Lou expected to be honest. She’s never been shy about the bedroom, but things with Debbie felt different. Not in a bad way, just in a way that dictated time and patience. Like the way you savour the most delicious thing on your plate, saving it for last. Once you figure out what the best part is, you never want it to end.

So it takes a while, and when it finally happens, nothing shatters. The world still turns. The sun still rises. The girls still call and drop by and eat her fridge clean. But Debbie’s in her bed at night. Stroking and sighing and watching Lou’s eyes roll into the back of her head.

And Lou would be lying to say she hasn’t been wanting this for a long time now. That it isn’t as good as she’s always imagined.

The problem isn’t that she doesn’t trust what Debbie Ocean says or does or makes her feel, it’s that she does. And that terrifies her. It was okay before, pretending that this fire that burned between them might never be. That the spark would remain, but they would always burn at different speeds. Now though . . . now there’s nowhere to hide.

Now Debbie wants to make a go at this thing.

And what if it doesn’t end well?

What if there is no happily ever at the end?

What if she and Debbie just aren’t meant to be . . . like that?

She’d rather have pieces of Debbie than nothing at all. And all this happiness and bliss and the strange patch of domesticity they’ve fallen into feels much too good to be true or to last. Lou feels like she’s got a clock ticking somewhere, counting down what’s left of her good karma. And frankly, she can’t have that much built up. It feels like it might be getting close, and she can’t watch Debbie slip through her fingers again.

She needs Debbie in her life. So what if she jumps and there isn’t a place to land at the bottom? What if she just keeps falling, right past Debbie? What if there is nothing to catch her in the end?

Lou fishes through her sock drawer again. There are frilly, silky things in here now that belong to Debbie. It’s happening like that all over the place. Little bits of Debbie are infiltrating everywhere. And what if she can’t find herself in the end? When all of Debbie disappears, what will be left of her this time?

Lou tosses the socks from the drawer, digging around for something plain and black and familiar. Something that doesn’t belong to Debbie Ocean. Why does something as stupid as a sock make her feel like this?

She groans, angry now, throwing handfuls of socks across the room.

“Hey, what’d those socks ever do to you?”

Lou drops . . . a lot. The socks in her hands. Her hands to her hips. Her head. Everything hangs, defeated, before Debbie, who stands in the doorway, silhouetted like some angel that might fly right back out of her life at any moment.

“I can’t find any of my socks,” she says, trying desperately to muster some sanity or patience, or both.

“There are some in the wash,” Debbie says. She’s got one of those looks. The kind that picks things apart and puts them back together again.

Lou looks away. She’s not in the mood right now.

“Why don’t you just borrow mine?”

“No.” Lou sighs. “It’s fine.”

“Really,” Debbie insists.

“I don’t even need them right now,” Lou says, heated. “I don’t even know why I was looking for them.” She begins picking them up from the floor, tossing them back towards the drawer.

“Hey. Hey!” Debbie says, stepping inside the room. Inside that bubble of space that Lou uses like a shield. Very few people get to cross it. Debbie is one of them.

Of fucking course she is.

Lou spins away from her, dropping the socks she’s holding to wrap her arms around herself. It’s the best she can do.

“This isn’t about socks.”

“Yes, it is. And it’s dumb. Let’s drop it, okay?”

“Not okay,” Debbie says. “Something’s bothering you.”

“Debbie, don’t—”

Debbie doesn’t say another thing but touches her—a single hand in the middle of her back. It’s enough to undo her.

Lou brings her hand to her face. It rests on her forehead, her fingers dropping down to hide the tears that gather in her eyes. She moves away from Debbie and plops down on the end of the bed. “You’re everywhere,” Lou whispers. Any louder and she wouldn’t trust the words to come out. “You’re everywhere and I can’t—”

“Do you want me to go?”

“No, god no! I want you to stay. Jesus, I’m buggering it all up.” She swipes at her eyes.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s . . . it’s a mess.” Lou thumps her fist on her knee. “Because I love you, Debbie Ocean. And I told myself you wouldn’t worm your way back in where I couldn’t let you go again. But you have.”

There’s a moment. A beat of absolute silence. Then Debbie says, “You’re scared.”

Lou scoffs, regaining some of her composure. “I am not scared.”

“Are too,” Debbie says, smiling a little. “But just so you know, I’ve wormed my way in and intend to stay for a very long time. Might even make it permanent.”

* * *

Lou blinks at her. Once. Twice.

Debbie wants to scream. Then kiss her. Or maybe the reverse.

“So what is this then? A proposal?”

There it is, those words again. Only this time there’s no tease. No sass. Just confusion. And beneath that—hurt.

Debbie pushes on. Sometimes it’s the only way in life, the only way with Lou. “What if it is? What if we could be more than just partners?”

“More,” Lou says, turning the word over on her tongue like it might be tainted or false or ready to disintegrate. To dissolve into a million irreplaceable pieces that leave her lonely and alone. With only memories of what was and what might have been and what was never hers.

But she is hers, Debbie wants to scream. She’s been Lou’s for as long as she can remember. There aren’t enough ways to say it or to force it into the space between them. There just aren’t enough ways to make Lou understand. And that’s her fault. She put this tainted thing between them. Played with the one part of Lou that isn’t so easily mended.

She betrayed her trust. She left her alone, for however brief a time.

Lou blinks at her between her fringe and Debbie can hear her crying out in the silence. All she needs is for Lou to reach out and she’ll catch her. She’ll spend forever catching her.

“If more is what you want, Lou.” She pulls the ring from her pocket. It’s in a pretty, blue velvet box. It’s been this way for months. Warming that place inside her pocket for the right time. “I have that diamond now.”

It’s a question without being a question.

Debbie puts the box on the bed between them and nudges it towards Lou, just a little.

Lou reaches for it, her fingers flipping open the lid. Her eyes widen, blue so vivid Debbie could fall into them thinking she’d found the sky. “Is that—”

Debbie nods. A piece of the Toussaint. The last piece, in fact.

“You kept it. All this time?”

“This was the reason I went after diamonds in the first place.”

Lou’s voice catches, something soft caught behind her tongue, then her face breaks into something like a smile. One of those rare, genuine moments that truly catches her off guard. “You would go through something this elaborate just to propose.”

“That’s me,” Debbie says. “Go big or go home.”

“You are home,” Lou tells her, taking the ring from the box. She hands it to Debbie then holds out her hand.

“I can stay then?”

“Yes,” Lou says as Debbie slides the ring into place.

“For how long?”

“Oh, honey,” she wiggles her hand, admiring the sparkle. She beams then, so wide Debbie can’t help but laugh. “For this, you can stay forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end :)


End file.
